and this is what I'm concerned about and speaks to HH's comments/concerns about alpha never getting off the ground:
in the early days NB indicated there was a sliver of overburden to dig through to get to this cannel coal and torbanite. apparently had customers who were very interested. simple.
then for reasons not explain to us mere mortals, a lot of money was spent on expensive consultants to develop a model that suggested the alpha project was becoming an energy concern. a carbon neutral energy concern.
it sounded to me like a savvy means of gaining political palatability and ensuring smooth sailing for environmental concerns.
but now it appears to be the primary focus. this latest change, to geothermal, strikes me as particularly concerning. why delay the entire project for the sake of what seemed, initially, to be a side show. a lot of time and money has already been spent on developing the solar approach, and now there's this shift towards geothermal. with no reasons given for the shift in focus or why the whole project is worthy of being delayed for it.
these are considerable and expensive delays for an apparently simple project as initially laid out. part of the reason for jumping straight to DFS was cost concerns about retort testing for PFS. and now here we (potentially) are. back at PFS.
the original vision for alpha included nothing about energy production, and now it seems to be the primary focus.
my spidey sense is tingling.
is there a reason they've gone quite quiet on alpha? is there a reason Healy didn't appear very interested in the alpha project? and perhaps most importantly, is there a good reason why the alpha project has remained dormant for many many decades?
all my opinion based on my subjective understanding only. and I'm not an expert. dyor.
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